A guide to employment and earnings records data. The goal was to focus on data systems that impose significant data collection and reporting burdens on major stakeholders—employers, HR technology providers, and state UI and NDNH programs. It includes data elements collected in the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program and the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) Program by any state, territory, or the District of Columbia. Benefits include:* Allows development of a prototype than can be expanded to all states, territories, and the District of Columbia, without iterative efforts* Potentially standardizes employers’ reporting requirements for over 100 reports to states and territories (high impact)* Potentially addresses all employment and earnings data needs of four federal data systems—Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll, Hospital Wage Index Survey, and National Principal and Teacher Survey—School and Private School Questionnaires * Provides several new data elements in high demand for public-private workforce analytics (e.g., job title, job duties, birth date, gender, primary work location, etc.)* Enables cross-state, cross-region comparisons of labor market conditions with consistently defined data* Provides data for verification of work experience contained in jobseeker resumes* Provides data for verification of employment and earnings for applications to government programs